IMAGINATIONS FROM THE OTHER SIDE. A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE DIGITAL FASHION PHENOMENON. DEFINITIONS, PRODUCTIONS AND CONSUMPTIONS

This dissertation investigates the relationship between digital fashion, body representation, and cultural production within virtual spaces and gaming platforms. Using a netnographic approach and analyzing case studies (such as Animal Crossing and advertising content from multiplayer video games), it examines user participation, “prosumer culture” dynamics, and imitation/distinction mechanisms. The aim is to understand how digital fashion not only reproduces traditional aesthetics but also reinforces power structures, symbolic hierarchies, and outdated cultural models. Positioned at the intersection of fashion, digital media, and cultural studies, the thesis proposes new research paths on subjectivity and identity in virtual environments.\r\n\r\n- Chapter I\r\n\r\nThe first chapter presents a systematic review of the literature on the phenomenon of digital fashion. Although there are studies and reviews dedicated to the phenomenon of fashion and its digitization, a systematic and exclusive in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of digital fashion is still lacking. This chapter presents, in chronological order, as comprehensive a collection as possible of the literature on the subject, choosing as its time frame the years between 2003, the year of the release of Second Life, a social media platform based on simulated reality, which was also pioneering in the forms of “synthetic” sociality it made possible, and 2023. Our initial aim is to define and clarify the concept of ‘digital fashion’, which is often easily misinterpreted or open to various interpretations, but also to provide a historiographical analysis, consciously choosing to examine a fairly long period of time, especially when dealing with rapidly changing topics such as those related to advances in digital technology.\r\n- Chapter II\r\n\r\nThe second chapter of the paper aims to explore a specific case study of the phenomenon of hybridization between fashion and the world of video games. The object in question is the gaming platform Animal Crossing, an online multiplayer life simulator produced by Nintendo. Within this virtual context, especially during the pandemic, there have been several collaborations with fashion brands, as well as various events, including fashion shows, product presentations, and advertising campaigns. Starting from the Instagram profile of Kara Chung, a model and digital artist specializing in the production of fashion products on the Animal Crossing platform, a netnography was developed to track, within the sample (composed of the entire population of followers of the source profile), how many users, in turn, use the Animal Crossing platform to produce digital fashion items. A description of the video game and its features is also provided. This is followed by a section dedicated to the methodology and sampling criteria. Finally, a description of the sample obtained and its structure is provided.\r\n- Chapter III\r\n\r\nThe third chapter develops a visual analysis of user productions, sampled according to specific criteria (illustrated in the previous chapter). The aim here is to explore how fashion, creativity, and imagery are perceived, developed, and re-mediated by actors traditionally considered not as producers but as consumers, in a ‘bottom-up’ dynamic, opposite to the paths that mainstream fashion communication has historically followed. All the visual content collected in this way was analyzed and coded (Pink, 2007; 2008; Ardévol, 2012; Rose, 2016), using a grounded methodological approach (Charmaz, 2008). The methodological choice adopted here was motivated by the intention to remain as faithful as possible to the nature of the database collected.\r\n- Chapter IV\r\n\r\nIn the fourth chapter, in line with the logic and approaches adopted in the previous chapter, we chose to explore the following online multiplayer video game platforms: 1. League of Legends; 2. Valorant; 3. Overwatch 2; 4. Apex Legends. The choice of these four specific titles was motivated by their adherence to certain characteristics, defined as follows: 1. the possibility of being played online in multiplayer mode; 2. popularity and widespread use; 3. the presence of anthropomorphic/zoomorphic characters. \r\nThe database, which is also visual in this case, was then constructed using advertising content and official images extracted from these four gaming platforms. In this part of the work, the aim is to verify, once again through visual analysis, whether the dynamics of the construction of imaginaries, the definition of stereotypes, and gender issues attributed to fashion by existing literature are also replicated in the digital context, or whether these dynamics are changing with this new type of consumption of the fashion product, both as a ‘material object’ and as a ‘cultural object’. The nature of the data examined differs from the previous chapter: while in the case of Animal Crossing, the focus was on ‘bottom-up’ user productions, in this case, the focus is on ‘top-down’ productions, i.e., not user-generated, but directly and officially produced by the video game producers in question. To achieve this objective, we have chosen to use a methodological approach based on digital methods and ethnography (Hine 2016), corroborated, once again, by visual analysis. The objective we have chosen to set ourselves at this juncture is to explore the visual communication of these products, which are directly and unequivocally linked to the world of video games. This methodological approach responds to the very nature of the object of study: both fashion and video games are highly visual in nature; both depend on and exist in digital, interconnected, and global media contexts.\r\n- Chapter V\r\nThe fifth and final chapter offers a summary of the entire text, phase by phase, seeking to develop reflections on the various aspects addressed individually, as well as in a more holistic and broader manner. Finally, an organic synthesis is proposed, along with various ideas on potential future developments and new directions that research in this field could take.